In early 1970, with The Beatles already broken up unofficially and Paul McCartney on the brink of announcing it to the world, there was time for one last monumental Beatles single to add to their canon. McCartney’s hymnal paean to acceptance of ‘Let It Be’ was, in retrospect, the perfect full stop at the end of the band’s storied career.
While one more single would follow, the title track from the group’s controversial final album would stand alone as a testament to what they were capable of, even in the process of splintering. The song opens with its songwriter playing the main chord progression alone on the piano, reflecting the sheer power of its melody even without instrumental adornment.
But maybe the element of the song that’s drawn the most attention is its lyrics. In particular, one line in which McCartney sings, “Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom”.
Is he singing about the Virgin Mary?
Given the religious overtones in the song’s compositional structure and instrumentation, this lyric is commonly interpreted as a Christian reference to the mother of Jesus, Mary. The Virgin Mary is a common subject for divine apparition and miracles, especially in the modern-day Catholic church, to which McCartney’s family subscribed during his childhood. There are holy sites around the world dedicated to instances of Mother Mary coming to people in visions.
McCartney himself acknowledged that people “use it as the Virgin Mary”, and he accepted their interpretation of the lyric. “It doesn’t matter, for me. Great.”
But he was referring to someone else when he wrote the song. “My mother was Mary Patricia Mohin McCartney, a good Catholic girl from Ireland,” he explained in an interview during the 1990s. “She died when I was quite young still,” he added. In fact, McCartney was just 14 when his mother passed away from cancer. An event that would forge a powerful bond between him and John Lennon, whose mother died soon after.
“Much later, when The Beatles were having success, around about the time of ‘Let It Be’, we were all getting a little crazy.” Specifically, infighting between band members had reached a breaking point during the recording sessions for the aborted Get Back album.
“And I’d gone to bed one night, and sort of had a dream. And she’d been in the dream.” McCartney’s mother reassured him, “It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright.” When he woke up, he thought, “I feel better now. I feel better about things.” Based on that feeling, he sat down at a piano and began writing one of his greatest songs. The words about his mother came naturally to him, just as she had in the dream.
McCartney’s daughter Mary, who recently produced a documentary about The Beatles’ famous recording studio Abbey Road, is named after his mother. She lives on through a new generation of talented McCartneys, just as she’ll be forever enshrined in her son Paul’s celestial masterpiece.